Aave has recently experienced internal conflict. On the surface, it looks impressive—by 2025, the DAO's revenue will surpass $140 million, exceeding the total of the past three years. But at the same time, the project's second-largest whale quietly liquidated and left, incurring losses of over $13 million. This stark contrast is hard to ignore.

What exactly happened?

The trigger was a seemingly technical decision: Aave switched its default swap service from ParaSwap to CoWSwap. Just this one change sparked a huge controversy.

Community members discovered that after the switch, the flow of fees changed. The funds that should have gone into the DAO treasury were now transferred to an address controlled by Aave Labs. About $200,000 per week, which adds up to over $10 million annually. This money disappeared from the community's view out of thin air.

It doesn't sound like a technical issue; it seems more like an issue of interests.

Aave founder Stani.eth later acknowledged this in a public statement. But the core conflict runs deeper—within a DAO project, who really has the final say: the team or the community?

You see, when revenues hit new highs, the community should be happy. But why are some people rushing to exit? Because everyone is starting to doubt who is really in control of these real profits. The project team can change fee flows at will, creating a rift between the community and the DAO.

In fact, this problem isn't unique to Aave. As long as it's a mainstream DeFi project, it has faced similar dilemmas—whether to prioritize efficient execution by the founding team or to allow full community participation in decision-making. Relying too much on the team makes the community passive. Relying too much on the community makes things slow.

This controversy around Aave, to some extent, is a structural issue that all DAO projects cannot avoid. The key isn't where the $10 million went, but whether the decision-making process itself is transparent.